vows, it was impossible to refuse one so young in years, and so old in devotion; she was accordingly admitted, although it was against the rules, and ought not by rights to have been done. Still, although she was the youngest of all the sisters, she was the gravest, the most regular, and the most fervent.

"The post assigned her was a very distinguished one, that of sacristine, or keeper of the ornaments of the great altar of our lady, and nothing could exceed the pious delight she took in dressing the holy image with flowers and jewels, and attending to the adornment of her shrine. She embroidered, too, in gold, silver and silk, with greater taste than any of the sisters, and, when the figure of our lady was dressed in the robes she made and arranged, all agreed that her talent was equal to her devotion.

"For five years after she had taken the veil she was considered as the greatest glory and pride of the convent, distinguished as all the members were, and in the town and everywhere in the neighbourhood, her name was cited as the very personification of godliness.

It so happened about this time that the news arrived at the convent, by means of the lay sisters and visitors, that a great ambassador, from I know not what prince, was travelling through Touraine with a very brilliant suite, and, as he was a singularly pious man, he had a desire to visit the shrine of the great Saint Martin of Tours. One of the sisters of Beatrix was engaged to be married to a young knight who served in the army commanded by this ambassador, and had accompanied him on his expedition. Wonders were told of the beauty of the young nobles, of the splendour of their equipments, of their jewels and armour, and appointments in general; and, for the first time, Beatrix felt a strong desire to look beyond the convent walls on a scene of splendour which she conceived must be worthy of the holy Virgin herself.

"The cortège must pass the convent on the way to Tours, besides which the pious ambassador intended to pause to visit a relative of his own in the convent. Beatrix, unable to conquer her wish, imparted it to the nun who guarded the exterior tower, which looked into the front court, and entreated her to allow her to look through a small window from which a full view could be obtained.

"After a good deal of hesitation the nun consented, for she reflected that nothing could be wrong which so pure a maiden desired so ardently.

"Accordingly, unknown to any one besides, Beatrix repaired to the spot and stationed herself at the window. If she had been astonished and delighted at the procession of the Fête Dieu, the only one she had seen, how much more was she dazzled and bewildered with the superior attractions of this spectacle, in which so many handsome young knights appeared, each more brilliant and more full of spirit than his fellow. She trembled with a thousand agitating thoughts as she gazed, and in her eagerness the rosary she held dropped from her hand and fell to the ground. In an instant a hundred bright eyes were directed towards the spot where she was but half-concealed-smiles, gay words, laughter, and gallant kissing of hands followed, as she stood transfixed with confusion, the object of undisguised admiration.

"Long after the gay cavalcade had passed did she continue to

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gaze; and long after did she reflect on the hawks with gay jesses, on the embroidered scarves, on the love devices, on the banners, and on the whole inexplicable but entrancing scene. The Evil One was at work that day, and, alas! she did not struggle against him in his first assault.

A great change came over Beatrix; her happiness was fled; the ornaments of the altar had lost their lustre in her eyes; she no longer cared to perform her duties; she slept not for regret that she should never behold a world she so much admired.

"One morning, beside herself with sorrow, shame, but unconquerable wishes, she knelt before the shrine in the chapel she had served from her infancy, and there, addressing the tranquil image of the Virgin, which looked down smiling and unmoved as ever, she poured forth her agony in these words:

"Madonna-have I not faithfully served you night and day for all the years of my life? have I ever neglected my duties to you, or forgotten anything to your glory? I can no more. I can no longer bear this isolation from a world I long to see. Take back the keys which have been so long in my possession. I resign them into your keeping.'

"So saying she placed the keys behind the statue of the Holy Virgin and fled.

"For fifteen years Beatrix lived in the world and became acquainted with all its vanities. At the end of that time, disgusted and filled with remorse, she wandered back to the convent, and there, knocking at the gate she stood as a wayfarer unknown, and demanded of the new guardian of the tower if she had ever known a nun named Beatrix, and what had become her.

"Know her?' was the surprised reply. Certainly, she is well enough known, and has never quitted the convent where she always serves the chapel of our lady, an example to us all for piety and devotion.'

"Amazed at this news, Beatrix retired, and wandering about the hills came to this cave where she concealed herself, bemoaning her sins. One day as she was kneeling before a rude cross that she had made herself from some dry wood, a sudden apparition blest her sight, and she became aware that the Blessed Virgin was before her. "Beatrix,' said the heavenly vision, for fifteen years I have filled the office which you resigned to me; for fifteen years I have worn your habit and done your duties. It is now my turn to resign. No one is aware of the sin you committed. Return then and repent of your faults and resume your place. You will find the keys where you yourself placed them.'

"Beatrix returned to the convent-no one ever knew of what had happened except her confessor on her dying bed, and by her long penitence and contrition she justly gained the honours which have been paid her since her death."

La Petite Loriot thus ended her legend, which had not edified La Parisienne much, for she had strayed away during the recital, with our gallant host, with whom she had established a flirtation. We, the listeners, rose from our vine-covered seat, and all together descended to partake of a parting glass of Vouvray, which enabled us to bear the journey back to Tours with infinite ease and much increased animation.

USURY AND USURERS.

"There are boundless thefts in limited professions."-SHAKSPEARE.

THUS wrote our immortal Shakspeare, and modern times and modern practices bear full testimony to the truth of the proposition. The limited, that is to signify, the legalised profession of usury, is a striking and elaborate illustration of the Shakspearian axiom. Money-lending is no longer governed by generous intent, worthy motive, or honourable principle; nor is it, as heretofore, controlled in its operation by the wise, wholesome, and reasonable restrictions of the law; on the contrary, it is boundless and unrestrained in its terms, conditions, and impositions, and, as a consequence, too frequently most ruinous and destructive in its results. Legions of usurers now infest our Metropolis, preying alike upon spendthrift extravagance and commercial necessity, and that with greedy and rapacious appetite, and with no less heartless, merciless and oppressive intent.

Usury, in its plain, unsophisticated, and generally understood sense, is the loan of money at high, exorbitant, and ruinous rate of interest for the use thereof, and, in such sense it has not, nor can it ever have, any great claim to honest countenance or moral approval; nevertheless it has the law's sanction and protection for its unhealthy principle, and it is highly patronised and extensively encouraged in its practice. Usury feeds and fattens in rich and abundant pasture, and works wonderous changes in mundane affairs; it is equally effective in bringing the reckless and extravagant from their high and palmy condition, and in elevating the heartless and avaricious money-grubber to wealth, and investing him with the arbitrary power which wealth creates. Usury is most accommodating in its views, and extensive in its influence and operations; it gives the greatest possible facility to the speedy conversion of property in expectation into actual and immediate, though far from full valuable possession; and in such respect it has a talismanic effect in reconciling spendthrift expectants, prodigal heirs, and remainder-men to the longevity and procrastinated stay of their sires and other life-possessors on the surface of our sublunary sphere, for by its accommodating power the immediate realization of the solvendum in futuro is readily achieved.

How different were the notions of usury prevalent in ancient days as compared with the latitude of opinion now given to it! How praiseworthy was the principle that guided, how generous the intent which prompted, and how wise the legislative enactments which governed, the loan and advance of money, as opposed to the motive, object, and unrestricted system of modern bill-discounting! Usury, which is termed also in the ancient statutes interest and dry exchange, was taken to denote a gain or profit which a person made of his money by lending the same, and even at such early period was looked at in an evil sense, as an unlawful profit made of money, and in such sense it was declared to be forbidden alike by the civil and ecclesiastical law, and by the law of nature.

Use or interest by the civil law was divided into lucrative and compensatory: lucrative, where it was paid and where no advantage

had accrued to the debtor for the money borrowed, and where he (the debtor) had practised no deceit. Under such circumstances, usury, or the taking of interest, was forbidden; but in the compensatory sense, where money lent had been advantageous to the borrower, and disadvantageous to the lender, by reason that the latter was not sooner paid, interest was permitted by law in compensation for the beneficial loan. There is no denying the fact that this law, making, as it did, the profit and remuneration of the lender to depend upon the successful appropriation, by the borrower, of the money advanced, was more nice and refined in its conception, than it was strictly just in its provisions; it was a law which must necessarily have presented many difficulties in regard to evidence and proof under dispute, but it exhibited, nevertheless, in its intention a vigilant and protective care for the welfare of the community against the grasping views of avarice, and the vindictive practices of oppression. If some such protective principle were to be made applicable to the government and control of the modern system and practice of money-lending, and if bill transactions and all monetary negotiations on loan were to be judged by the intent, and compensated only in proportion to their beneficial results to the borrower, there would be a fearful revolution in the discount market, and a vast return of capital, levied in the shape of exorbitant interest, to its original possessors. The advertising columns of our daily and weekly newspapers would no longer teem with notices announcing that amounts from 100l. to 100.000l. are ready to be advanced on undeniable security, and on the personal responsibility of noblemen and gentlemen, heirs to, and expectants of, fortune. The covetous usurer and the grasping money-getter would look well to their darling gold and weighty ducats before they parted with them to feed the extravagance of the prodigal, or to encourage the ruinous and fatal propensities of the libertine and the gamester.

On the authority of Swinburne, we are informed that manifest usurers were denounced by the Papal power: that they were prohibited from making testamentary disposal of their goods and chattels, or of benefiting by the wills of others, without first satisfying, or purging themselves from the charge of usury by restoration of exacted interest. The punishment of the civil law was once a penalty of four times the amount of the interest taken this was, however, mitigated by the milder code of Justinian, whose decree, in regard to usurious exaction, enforced that any excess of interest should be accounted and set off, pro tanto, in discharge of the principal advanced; an arrangement embodying the purest principles of equity.

By Canon 109, not only was the testament of a manifest usurer declared to be void, but his body after death was forbidden burial amongst the bodies of other Christian men in any church or churchyard until restitution rendered, a law which was at once declaratory that usury was opposed to, and at variance with, all Christian principle. Were such notions to be entertained, and such prohibitions enforced in our day, it becomes a matter of speculative consideration whether a cemetery for the exclusive inhumation of defunct usurers and their immediate families might not turn out to be a very profitable source of revenue to a company carrying out the project, which might embrace also appropriate monumental designs and poetical inscriptions commemorative of the generous and disinterested qualities of the defunct noney-worshippers.

Usury was generally condemned by the early Fathers of the Church as contrary to divine law. Alexander III., in the council of Lateran, prohibited the taking of all interest for money; and it is remarked of Gregory IX., that he placed the chapter of usury after that of theft, a circumstance to which no extraordinary weight or consideration ought particularly to attach, for the reason that such position may have been the mere result of accordance with alphabetical order and arrangement.

The Mosaic law was distinguished for its more specific and less universal principle; it forbade the Jews to take interest of each other, but permitted the taking of it from strangers. Similar laws and opinions as to usury, or the demand of interest for money lent, prevailed amongst the Romans in the infancy of the republic, but when commerce was introduced amongst them, contracts for the loan of money at a certain profit or interest became frequent. The highest rate of legal interest, from the time of Cicero and Justinian, amounted to about 12 per cent. per annum, but the Roman Satirists inform us that usurious exactions of three, four, and five times that amount of profit were made. It will be seen, then, that our modern money lenders and bill discounters have classical precedent and ancient example and authority for their 40, 50 and 60 per cent. principal, now so generally adopted in their loan transactions. Justinian, in his Code, fixed the rate of interest upon a kind of sliding scale, or principle, at 4, 6, 8 or 12 per cent., according to the station of the lender and the nature of the contract; but evasions of the law were ingeniously and successfully practised, and the Canonists themselves were neither ignorant nor innocent of such practices.

The usury laws may now be said to be all but totally repealed, for, by Statute 2 and 3 Victoria, cap. 37, under any kind of security save that which has reference to, and has charge on, lands or tenements, any rate per cent. for interest may be taken for the loan or forbearance of money. This statute has relieved the money-lending and bill-discounting fraternity from all the troublesome shifts and evasions which, before the passing of such act, were constantly had recourse to in order to defeat the law.

Necessity now no longer imposes on the avaricious crew to cloak the enormity of their exactions under the trade of picture-dealing and other specious systems of barter, by which most exorbitant prices were obtained as the value of the commodity given in part consideration and value for the acceptance. In such transactions the veriest daubs were farmed off as chefs d'œuvre of eminent masters, and rated at high and unconscionable value. The system was not, however, confined to pictorial traffic, for every kind of commodity and manufacture was made available to the object of usurious gain to the discounter, and that in a manner to relieve him from the charge of taking interest in cash beyond the limit allowed by law. Coals, wines, cigars, clothes, horses, carriages, plate, furniture, were all auxiliaries to the great business of bill discounting, in evasion of the Usury Laws. Instances of the most absurd and ludicrous arrangement, illustrating the system in its extreme character, are on record, and will perhaps recur to the memory of many readers. Take, for example, the following:

A young and hopeful sprig of nobility, an expectant of fortune, having outrun his allowance, applied to a money-lender for an advance of 5001. on his acceptance. The usual doubts and difficulties were at